BP#5: Medical Marijuana regulation in the state of Michigan

A controversy arrises over the legalization of marijuana in the state of Michigan. This has been an ongoing controversy for many years in the state and it still continues. Many people say that there needs to be more regulation, while some proponents of this say there is no harm in the marijuana business. This can be attributed to the money going into the economy from dispensaries in the state. Many people use medical marijuana to treat illnesses such as Multiple Sclerosis, anxiety, etc. In September, Governor Rick Snyder signed a pair of bills that legalize and regulate “edibles” and dispensaries in the state. Although marijuana itself is not legalized in Michigan yet, medical marijuana is legalized, but is regulated at the state level.

I think that this controversy can be related to Calhoun’s “Standing for Something” and integrity. He says in order to have integrity is to understand that one’s own judgement matters because it is only within individual persons’ deliberative viewpoints, including one’s own that what is worth our doing can be decided. He also says that persons of integrity treat their own endorsements as ones that matter, or ought to matter, to fellow deliberations. Therefore, when we relate this to this particular controversy, is it to say that if an individual is a proponent for the legalization of marijuana then he/she is subdued to perhaps judgements that reflect upon his/her’s character? Calhoun says that persons’ have their own endorsements that they feel as if matter to them, and should universally in a sense, therefore should matter and be worthy of consideration. That being said, Calhoun does say that if integrity is not a merely personal virtue, but the social virtue of acting on one’s own judgement because doing so matter to deliberators common interest in determining what is worth doing, then hypocritical misrepresentation of one’s own best judgment clearly conflicts with integrity. Here I think he is saying that virtue relfects not just personally, but at a social level as well. However, he says that changing your personal virtues only because it is under consideration, then thats hypocritical an that cannot represent your integrity. I think that he has some sort of point, where he says that integrity reflects an indviduals’s considerate viewpooints and soley that individual and it is not to be impacted or altered by other exterior considerations on the table.